Our yearly culinary celebration of the potato pancake is back and better than ever! Featuring a selection of latkes with diverse flavors from Philadelphia’s top restaurants, local entertainment, hands-on activities and a few new surprises, this year’s Latkepalooza promises to be our best yet. This year’s event takes on a tasting menu format, with general admission including one latke ticket per vendor. Ages 2 – 12 receive a half sampling of latkes, ages under 2 a trio of latkes. Be sure to check our website for the delicious details and latest restaurant line-up!

Co-produced by famed comedian Cory Kahaney, the Gershman Y’s Moo Shu Jew Show returns for its 9th year. Guaranteed to fill your belly with laughs and plentiful Chinese fare, chow down on a multi-course meal in the heart of Chinatown and then wash it all down with a trio of performances from the nation’s best stand-up comedians. This year’s line-up features comedy favorites Moody McCarthy, Marla Schultz, and Brad Zimmerman. Food is not kosher, vegetarian options available.

Justin Kimball has been photographing in small towns in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Ohio brought to the brink of obsolescence by the recent financial downturn, capturing their streets, residents, and landscapes. While imbued with social and political subtext, Kimball’s images carry a broader significance. In his depiction of communities faced with hardship, Kimball examines the persistence of hope and the concept of what it means to be human in our modern world. His photographs document a growing portion of the American landscape.

What do pizza and kindness have in common? Join Repair the World: Philadelphia for the local launch of BKind, an innovative Israeli social enterprise, and an evening with Philly’s “pay it forward” pizza restaurant, Rosa’s Fresh Pizza. Learn about the exponential capacity of kindness through pizza that feeds the homeless, and start your own chain of kind acts. This program is 100% FREE!

Samuel Maoz’s critically acclaimed, award-winning drama follows the lives of a grieving Tel Aviv couple after they are told that their son was killed in the line of duty. Starring Lior Ashkenazi (Norman, Footnote) and Sarah Adler (TheCakemaker, Aya), Foxtrot is a powerful rumination of the lunacy of war. With devastatingly beautiful performances and stunning cinematography, Foxtrot took home the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, reaped eight Ophir Awards at Israel’s 2017 Academy Awards, and most recently has been shortlisted for the Best Foreign Language Film nomination for the 2018 Oscars.

Official Selection: AFI Fest | Haifa International Film Festival | London Film Festival | Palm Springs International Film Festival | Sundance Film Festival | Telluride Film Festival | Toronto International Film Festival | Venice Film Festival | Warsaw Jewish Film Festival

Awards: Israel’s 2017 Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film | National Board of Review for Best Foreign Language Film | Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Art Direction, Best Music, and Best Sound at Israel’s 2017 Academy Awards | Arca CinemaGiovani Award – Best Film, SIGNIS Award – Honorable Mention, and Silver Lion – Grand Jury Prize at Venice Film Festival

The Gershman Y is excited to present a new three part dance series featuring Yiddish Dance master Steven Lee Weintraub! The series will introduce participants to a number of Yiddish dance concepts, stylings, and vocabulary and have you moving in no time! No dance experience required.

YIDDISH DANCE 101 • March 8 • This introduction class features lessons on how to dance to klezmer music, focusing on basic styling of the improvisational Freylekhs and Khosidl, and other essential repertoire, including the Bulgar and Zhok.

Pack your lunch and join us for our lecture series that explores cultural and historical moments through the Jewish lens.

THE INVISIBLE HARRY GOLD • March 14

In the history of Soviet espionage in the United States, few people figure more crucially than Harry Gold. Gold, born in Switzerland and of Russian-Jewish parentage, spied for the Soviets from 1935 to 1950, and is literally the man who handed the USSR the plans for the atom bomb. Allen M. Hornblum, local author and historian, recounts the life of this little known Philadelphia industrial chemist, whom at one time was the subject of the most intensive public manhunt in the history of the FBI and helped the FBI discover the Rosenberg spy ring. The Invisible Harry Gold, Allen M. Hornblum’s written work of Harry Gold’s life, will be available for purchase. RSVP HERE!

New Series! Join us as local authors serve up a bite of their new works while enjoying a bagel brunch! Bagels served at 1:00 pm, with author presentations beginning at 1:30 pm. Books will also be available for purchase.

Mace Bugen might have been an achondroplastic dwarf—forty-three inches tall with an average-sized head and a torso set on small, twisted legs—but that didn’t mean he was an idiot or a pushover. In truth, he was smarter than most; over the years, he learned to effectively turn what society in those days called a handicap into a powerful tool he could use to his advantage.

Join author Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer as she traces the life of her amazing uncle Mace Bugen through his journey as a first-generation Jewish-American kid in working class Philipsburg, NJ to become the first celebrity selfie-artists – way ahead of his time. Featuring vintage photos of Mace with his exploits, The Little Gate Crasher captures three decades of American pop culture, seen through the unique lens of Mace and his gate-crashing exploits.

Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer is a freelance writer and educator based in Philadelphia. In addition to The Little Gate Crasher, Kaplan-Mayer’s recent works include The Creative Jewish Wedding Book and The Kitchen Classroom. Kaplan-Mayer is a featured blogger for WHYY Philly Parenting and is a writer and editor for The New Normal: Blogging Disability. As the director of “Whole Community Inclusion” at Jewish Learning Venture, Kaplan-Mayer leads various disability awareness trainings across the Philadelphia Jewish Community.

PHILADELPHIA PREMIERE
Nicolas Bedos and Doria Tillier are the co-writers and stars of this stylish French dramedy about the highs, lows, betrayals and passions of a 40-year marriage. After a one-night-stand, Sarah is determined to make Victor fall in love with her. When he refuses, she dates his brother and seduces his best friend – it works. Their ensuing passionate love affair showcases the on-screen chemistry between Bedos and Tillier. Like any tragicomedy, their happiness is fleeting. MR. & MRS. ADELMAN depicts the vacillations between love and hate, power struggles, money and drugs, and extra-marital affairs – none of it powerful enough to rip through the foundation the Adelmans have built. Their love is wild and irrational, but fiercely tender too.

Without a doubt, 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the greatest and most philosophical science-fiction films ever made. It has provided some of cinema’s most famed icons—the monolith, the ape bone toss, the HAL-9000, the Star-Gate, and the strange hotel suite. 50 years later, 2001 is more relevant than ever, as we organize our lives amidst a culture of technology and vast potential.

We invite you to join us for a mind-bending evening that will feature multi-media presentations, a panel discussion, film clips and video about Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi masterpiece and its icons for the 21st century. Produced by Barry Vacker and Brooke Storms of Temple University and presented by The Gershman Y, Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival, and TUTV-Temple University Television & The Rudman Media Production Center.

Our event will conclude with a complimentary reception and book signing with an opportunity to meet and mingle with guest panelists and authors.